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Inter-Varsity Sport

ANU went Head-to-Head with the Universityof Melbourne in the first Intervarsity Australian rules football clash between the two universities at South Oval.

After 4 weeks of training under former Carlton player and NEAFL Coach with Eastlake Football Club, Anthony Bourke, the ANU team was rearing to go. The team knew they needed to bring their best performance with their opposition traveling up from Australian Footballs heartland.

The ANU boys started slow, and nerves may have got the better of them early on, conceeding a 40 point lead by quarter time. The break was exactly what ANU needed, in the second and third quarters ANU changed gears and applied significant defensive pressure and bagging a few goals to keep the deficit from gowing in what became an incredibly even game. Coach Anthony Bourke sang the teams praises and noted Harry Delves, Phil Syross, Jake Almond and Fergus MacFarlane as being particularly industrious.

Unfortunately the fitness of the University of Melbourne side showed in the fourth quarter and at the final siren, the University of Melbourne had kicked 16-4 (100) to defeat ANU 5-5 (35).

Over 400 students and supporters turned up to watch the inaugural Intervarsity match which may be a sign of things to come for student sport at ANU and around Australia. This match was one of the first of its kind in Australia and ANU is very excited and proud to be part of the foundations of what could be a national competition for students.

University of Melbourne Director of Sport Tim Lee explained that this first match would lead to a wider inter-varsity competition.

"What we're trying to do is really develop a national competition over time between the Group of 8 universities that we are able to engage the university community with," he said.

"We'd like to do a formal pre-season competition and we'll be talking to the university administrators about how we can get some support to do that. We hope that Orientation Week we'd have a competition, either next year or the year after, so ANU and Melbourne would be playing each other at least once annually," Lee said.

ANU Sport Chief Executive Michael Brady agreed

"We felt this was a good opportunity to introduce the students to the concept and I think the game has shown that they would be prepared to do that, so we think that's certainly one box ticked as far as the success of the occasion is concerned," he said.

Keep your eye out for the ANU v UC Intervarsity Challenge slated for later this year.